blue2blue

If all else fails, check out whether using WDM/KS (kernel streaming) drivers for your interface work better. When I use ASIO drivers with my MOTU 828mkII, I get all kinds of little problems. WDM/KS drivers (when available) have high performance features to get around some of the inherent limitations of standard WDM drivers.

No doubt there are many who are looking for those sounds but I'm not. Additionally, I already have a 3 w/side "studio amp" (with a buffered FX loop AND a (selectable) decent speaker 'sim' output... And I STILL end up using my crappy Blues Jr for tone reasons... Make something that sounds like a Blues Jr, take out the reverb (or put in one with appropriate impedance to cut the ocean of hiss) and you could no doubt get a couple hundred extra out of me. But if I was gonna go the boutique route, I'd simply build it myself with the thinking that I'd be able to tinker it to what I want instead of what some boutique guy thinks I want... It'd take some sweat equity, of course, but I could do it for a tenth the cost of a lot of boutique amps. Maybe a 20th. The time to get into this biz was about ten years ago, seems to me. But there's always room at the top. Good luck!

There ya go! No... it's actually really easy to transfer audio from one DAW to another (as opposed to a session with a bunch of plugs and mix details, if you see what I mean). At the simplest, you simply export all your tracks in a standard audio format like WAV or AIFF, making sure that all the audio starts at the 0:00 mark. So, say a track is made up of a bunch of little clips... Your DAW software likely has a quick way to either turn that track into one big clip that begins at 0:00 (the beginning) or export or bounce such a file. Basically, you just want all your individual audio files to begin at the beginning so you can just drop them into whatever DAW you're transporting them to, lining them all up at 0:00. Now, some DAWs will even let you do a whole project more or less at once, exporting each track to its own audio file(s). Other DAWs may require more sweat on your part, perhaps forcing you to export a track at a time.

Originally posted by cov99 You are using terms with a noob WHAT IS DAW AND OMF????????? DAW, digital audio workstation... it's basically the whole system but you'll hear people refer to recording software (like Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic, Sonar, etc) as DAW software. This would be a great place for you to get a lot of good, general info on computer recording in one place, and it has some good links, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation OMF -- or sometimes OMFI -- stands for "Open Media Framework (Interchange)" and, as Wikipedia says, is "a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications. It is used by programs like Avid, Final Cut Pro, SONAR, Nuendo, Cubase, Logic Pro and Pro Tools." (As I was saying, while OMF is offered 'free' as part of some DAW softwares, Digidesign makes you pay an extra $500 for their OMF utility.)

Originally posted by wbcsound I stand corrected! I believe OMF has done away with the inability of opening raw tracks between several DAW's...hopefully the future spec will be able to support some enhanced functionality as well... Only problem is -- while many DAWs like Sonar support OMF import and/or export as a basic feature -- Digidesign treats it as an expensive add-on. And I don't mean a couple hundred bucks expensive. DigiTranslator is $500.

Well, sure, if you're comfortable with programming directly in your DAW's MIDI interface, you should do fine. Or you could always use a simple computer-keyboard-to-MIDI utility to capture the basic sequence and then tinker it in with "groove/style" overlays or hand-tinkering of the times/velocities. (Computer-keyboard-to-MIDI utilities almost always have idiosyncratic timing/latency issues.) You could also use a MIDI arrangement generator or MIDI drum loops as a starting place.

You know, I must be a funny cuss... (Well, duh.) Anyhow, for some reason, reading this thread has given me the itch to pull that Pod XT back out and give it another whirl. Maybe it's cause last time I plugged into my Blues Jr I decided it needed to be retubed... maybe it's cause I was playing d.i. the other night via the instrument input on my MOTU 828mkII and the slight internal CueMix monitor latency didn't bug me as it has in the past... in fact, unless I thought about it, I didn't notice it. It was odd. In the past, it's simply made me uncomfortable. Maybe my sense of fine time is going in my dotage... if so, maybe I'm ready for the Pod.

If you like the pod, get the pod. If you don't like the pod, don't get the pod. I have a Pod XT over here and I don't much care for it. (It's on long term loan from a friend who does like it but has other things going on and needed somehwere to park it.) But then I don't much care for most of the guitar sounds I hear in contemporary pop, so there ya go. If I was -- heaven forfend! -- in a cover band (it would have to be a very lame cover band 'cause I certainly don't have the chops many of my working brothers and sisters do ), I'd probably have some sort of digital box where I could punch up the "latest sounds" and feel fine about it.

Well even their first album, which had some heavily produced numbers on it had European Son (to Delmore Schwartz)... justly infamous for covering up the sound of a very clumsy edit with the sound effect of a toilet flushing... that used to SLAY me... but then I'd usually wander off and start cleaning house or something a minute or so into the "jam"... The say drugs have personalities -- and I believe there's a certain amount of poetic truth to that. But think of the complex "personality" that would have to be behind European Son and also behind something like Kinda Blue...

Now... first let me say that I think it's, overall, a great record and a landmark of its time and I would NOT want anyone to touch one waveform in the original master mixes... but ever since I sat down and listened to Derek and the Dominos again for the first time in a few decades, all the way through on good speakers I found myself thinking... wow... great record but some really rough, noisy, messy recording. But like I said I'll lay myself down in the roadway in front of anyone driving over to remix or substantially remaster that album. And consider the sacrifice noble.

Yeah... you need to be as careful in many ways gainstaging a DAW as you do with an analog mixing rig. It's entirely possible to top out against 0 dBfs in individual tracks, subs -- or plugs -- but have what looks like a reasonable level at the master depending on how you have plugs, inserts, and subs set. It may be helpful to turn on individual track/channel/sub meters to make sure you're not topping out. Also, check to see if your DAW has switchable meter positions. Some of my meters can be set to pre and post points in various chains... and those metering points can tell you very different things.

Well... you have to let your memory slide back to a time when Phillip Glass was putatively hip... that's a long slide for those of us with a 21st century 15 minute attention span. Actually, given the context, I just thought y'all were talking about some neo-rock band with hipster pretensions... I find this reference somehow heartening. Even though I grew to be a Glass-hata in my later adulthood (I'm an orchestral music fan and was once a big fan of Kronos Quartet so I've had to sit through a fair amount of Glass and it gets longer and more irritating every time it happens in concert -- it was actually the Kronos' fanship to Glass that drove me away... and all those concept albums and novelty tunes... where was I)... Anyhow, I remember reading about EotB back then and thinking... wow... a hip opera... what'll they think of next? PS... for anyone hazy on EotB, there's a brief but informative write-up at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_on_the_beach ... and, interestingly, I guess, I wasn't too far off on the rock thing... seems Counting Crows and a band I've never heard of called Man Man borrowed the phrase for song titles.

By the end of the first minute my ears hurt... beyond fatiguing. It sounds "clean" in a way but it is so squashed and distorted (not in the grungy, way mind you) that it is, for me, utterly unlistenable. My cat seemed to respond VERY poorly to it, as well. (Then, again, he's really pretty much only into Coltrane's mellow side.) And then there's the music... yagh. But I guess there are probably a lot of folks who can't get enough regurgitated U2 stylings...

I guess it goes without saying but... a Mac or PC that "crashes all the time" has something seriously wrong with it, either in hardware or software. When properly set up, with good hardware, both platforms are quite stable. No one should feel that it's normal for either platform to crash "all the time." It's not. That said what should be and what is sometimes diverge. And there's no moral deficiency in having trouble getting the two to reconverge... it's probably happened to most of us at one point or another. But it shouldn't be regarded as "situation normal" -- 'cause it's not.

Thanks, Coaster! I'm a bit new to the ASIO driver thing. Using Sonar, with its modified WDM (WDM-KS) drivers, I'd gravitated that way. But I have to say that I have had a couple issues with ASIO drivers not showing up when I expected. That said, I don't think I've had that problem at all with the "native" WDM driver format. One exception to this is in the Sony updates to my old Sonic Foundry software, Sound Forge and CD-Architect. Neither app seems to find proper drivers. CD-Arch can't even burn a CD! But it is unique in this respect. All my other audio and burn software finds my hardware properly. Honest to gosh, I can't think of anything else but to solely blame Sony. Even my old (pre-Sony) SF 5 still works. And that brings up one crucial issue -- a lot of times folks tend to blame the OS for things that are actually the APPLICATION DEVELOPER's (or hardware driver developer's) fault. The Windows world is blessed -- or perhaps cursed -- with a huge 3rd party universe of software (and even 3rd party drivers -- often trying to make up for perceived flaws/limitations in the hardware manufacturer's drivers) and not all of those developers are equally careful or thorough. So there may be a lot more apps to choose from -- but some of them may be far less than trouble free. Anyhow, I shouldn't let my 'sticking up for Windows' make it sound like I haven't had my occasional frustrations -- but I think anyone on any platform who uses the range of software and hardware I use (I'm not just a musician but a database/web developer) will probably have some of the same or similar frustrations. Everyone's mileage varies...

20 to 30 times? I find that more than a little tough to believe. I mean... if you spend an hour a month on housekeeping and maintenance on your Mac does that mean you spend an hour a day doing same on your PC? But if it FEELS like that... maybe that says plenty. Still... I'm having some trouble figuring out what you're pouring all this time into on your PCs. I mean, what kind of maintenance IS that... I can't even think of what my maintenance issues are on my XP laptop and tower. Installing programs and hardware... but that's not unique to PCs -- and BTW, re the comment about "plug and play" above -- I'd say my epxerience in the XP era is that 95% -- or better, I'm just trying to be safe -- of everything I've installed was completely trouble free and involved no driver disks or searches. Occasional devices like my MOTU 828mkII required a preinstallation of drivers... but that was fairly unique. OTOH, most USB and FW devices like my Samson USB mic, printers, cameras, scanners, etc, were plugged in the first time and just worked. So... I think it's time to lay that old thing to rest. But maintenance... I'm racking my brain here... are we talking disk defragging here? Anti-virus checks? (Now, I'll give you that one... PCs remain a MUCH bigger malware target. I don't use a resident virus scanner, so I schedule an online scan on a semi-regular basis. But that's unattended time, typically while I'm out or sleeping.) [but ten or fifteen years ago? Oh yeah... I had a VERY complex system, at one point 4 hard drives, a SCSI Jaz drive, SCSI CD burner, IDE CD ROM, a SCSI scanner, ADAT i/o card, Soundblaster, camera, network... yeah, under Windows 3 and 95 I occasionally had some REAL issues. ]

Use the platform you're most comfortble with -- and the one that supports the DAW you most want to work with. Your PC pals are right that a PC laptop will be roughly parallel in capabilities with a Mac laptop (at least now that the Macs are based on fast, efficient Intel chips, before that, the PC laptops had a BIG performance advantage). But if you aren't comfortbable working in a Windows environment, you may want to spend the extra bucks for your bang and get the GUI you like. Now that Apple is using Intel chips, they're able to use established designs that have been proven in the PC world -- obviating the previous necessity of their designing their own sub-assemblies, which had got them into trouble a number of times -- particularly with regard to i/o and memory bottlenecks in G5 generation Macs. That said, if you prefer Windows, as some of us do, you can go that direction knowing that generic PCs running Windows have offered -- on average over the last ten years -- better performance and, particularly in the late 90s and early century, OS-level integration of MIDI and multichannel audio that the Mac OS only added with OS 10.2, with crucial components added as late as 2003. I built my first 8 channel PC based DAW in '96. Many of my old recording pals from the 80s were using Macs. Two of them refused to believe I was recording 8 simultaneous channels of audio to my PC. I mean, absolutely refused to believe it. Joke was on them. But years of derision from them had left me with an inferiority complex that didn't lift until I began reading about the then-upcoming release of OS X. I was shocked -- shocked I tell you, shocked [no, really] -- to realize after all those years that the Mac OS not only didn't have any accomodation for native multi-channel audio -- it didn't even have a MIDI layer (forcing most folks to use the old Opcode de facto OMS standard). But that was then and this is now. I think you can move to either platform with confidence that that platform will well support your efforts with applomb. There may still be problems with specific machines (as usual, there've been reports of specific problems with some new Mac models; the same can be said of specific models and manufacturers of PCs, too) but the platforms themselves are both robust and, when properly set up, fast and stable. _____________ On the tape thing... if you want tape, you want tape and you'll have to put up with the maintenance and expense. Or, like a lot of young tape enthusiasts I read, you'll more likely just let the maintenance go -- since many "affordable" decks were not made for actual professional use and make it more than difficult to get at crucial circuit alignment adjustments. I've owned ten reel machines and I don't think ANYONE should disregard the overhead of maintenance -- or the degradation in performance that comes with neglect. And the tape IS expensive. It always was even when there were a handful of "pro" manufacturers (who had some mighty shabby QC toward the end -- I had a whole case of Ampex [Quantegy] that was all bad... too bad it had been in my tape locker too long to take back to my vendor) -- and it's just going to get more expensive as time goes on.

If their career isn't doing so well maybe it's just because people aren't into their music (unlike Steve Earle and Neil and Willie). Not sure why you think their career is flagging, Lee... their new album debuted at number one on both the U.S. pop albums chart and the U.S. country albums chart. (This means their last 3 albums debuted at number one.) It sold 526,000 copies in the first week. That was the year's second-best first week sales for any country act. It went gold its first week out. So I guess I'm not the only one who's "into their music." [That said, the tour has been having problems with ticket sales in some "red states." Uh... and Fresno.]

I don't doubt that some country fans feel insulted -- but I still haven't read any of the insults... Does anyone have a link to them? PS... I'd certainly agree that it's an unfortunate state of affairs if people adopt the political positions of their favorite artists for no other reason than that the artist holds them. But if an artist can EXPLAIN those positions in such a way as to persuade someone, fan or not, I say, more power to them. (And I'm not, by any means, suggesting that the DC have done so. Just making a comment about the process, here.)

And let's not forget that one of the two founding sisters, Martie Seidel, won third place honors at the National Fiddle Championships... some folks seem to want to make them out to be talentless manufactured stars. Like 'em or not, they do have roots in country and bluegrass music.

FantasticSound Well, I think you've explained your positions pretty well and I think it makes a fair bit of sense. Obviously, arguing about what is and isn't "real" country is like arguing about what's "real" rock or "real" blues... ultimately, there's going to be a lot of subjectivity and I should have probably stipulated that even though it's probably obvious to both of us. (And you don't even want to know what I think of current "rock" -- lemme tellya! ) Time Mag isn't my favorite for political analysis but they typically get their facts straight. But they didn't cite their sources, so... __________ On the "free speech" thing, to the extent that we're talking about constitutional rights and the law, I think that's a lot less open to subjective interpretation. The DC getting frozen out by CC and/or other broadcasters does have a free speech aspect -- but, as I got at before, it really relates to Clear Channel's free speech rights, so, as much as CC ticks me off (and I think is BEGGING prosecution on payola issues, which is another matter, of course), I have to say that Constitutional free speech guarantees tend to support their position to play what they want (within the guidelines of existing law and FCC policy). The DC certainly are assured free speech rights under the constitution but there's nothing that assures them the right to be played by a given broadcaster -- and much that supports the broadcaster's right not to play them. Now, if the government was censoring their records or printed materials, THEN you'd have a bigtime free speech issue... Let's put it this way -- if I held a broadcast license, I'd be UP IN ARMS if someone tried to make me play, say, Ted Nugent -- a man whose nearly every aspect and certainly whose politics and music turn my gut. (OK... I did kind of like "Journey to the Center of Your Mind" because it was so damn silly... but it PALES in comparison to Kenny Rogers' faux-psychedelic classic "I Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In.") ______________ PPS... back to music... I think I'm on FantasticSound's page with re "Landslide." I like it a bit better by the DC than by Nicks, but still not a huge amount. (I'm a Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac fan. I like some of the Bob Welch stuff pretty well, too, but it's, you know, pretty well a different band, as different from the FM headed up by PG as that fronted by Buckingham and Nicks. BTW, I can say that I heard the Buckingham and Nicks [presumably still obscure] solo record before I heard them with FM. Is THAT worth anything in the props dept? Yeah... I didn't think so... OK... how about this... I played through a little fender amp belonging to Christine MacVie once when I was in a one-time-only band headed up by Pete Paterno when he was still in law school and still FM's part-time soundman (put together for a law school talent show, no less)... still no props, huh? Oh well... )

That's what I'm thinking, Bill. Where "free speech" enters into the CC vs DC thing is actually that CC's free speech rights could be argued to support their decision to not play the DC -- in the extremely unlikely event this FCC should get interested in the brouhaha. If the DC bought a station (or published a paper, blog, etc) and the government/FCC tried to restrict what they said or broadcast, then we could be talking about the DC's free speech rights and whether or not they were being infringed. I kept seeing that ongoing discussion and meant to weigh in directly on the use of the term with regards to this but kept getting distracted... It's an important consideration to keep straight, I think, and I understood your tenacity in pursuing that.

Originally posted by fantasticsound The only insult I mentioned was the direct press release from the chicks that they were no longer country artists. That, in and of itself, was insulting. In a nutshell, I took it to mean rock audiences are cool, country are narrowminded, right wing nut jobs. Call me crazy, but I don't think that's reading too much between the lines when they jump ship. They never said it was about the country music powers that be. They said they were leaving country for fans who appreciate them. How you were raised has no bearing on the fact that redneck is alternately used by some southern folk as a badge of the working man's honor and as a derogatory term every time someone is labelled ignorant with a southern accent. Some people revel in that rural, salt of the earth, practiacality over book learning reputation, but many do not. Some black people think it's ok to use the "n" word between themselves is ok. Others are enraged at such use. "Redneck" is used much the same way. Wow. An exception to a stereotype. Stop the presses! Wow, again. You're a demographic expert and intimately familiar with the character and past of most country pop stars. What's with that mountain sized chip on your shoulder. I don't know who you're talking about, but I'm acquainted with more than a few of those I believe you're talking about and you couldn't be more wrong. To be sure there are people in country (and rock and jazz and...) who fit the description you suggest. But don't paint such a broad picture because you're bound to be wrong, and not just about a few people. I suggest you point that evil eye at roots country and do some research. I think you'll find a lot of disappointment when you learn a thing or two about some of your favorites. So A + B = C. Unfortunately, you're starting with a flawed statement. They didn't make their sound "less countrified". They played the game and made their sound more like what was selling. And for every artist that makes it there must be what, 100.. 1000 more with as much talent who don't? Please. It's convenient to blame their success on being "less country", but the fact is they were being more of what the country music establishment was selling. Even so, once they were on top, their most country album, Home, sold better than the two before it. So obviously they were in touch with people who might characterize themselves as more and less country. Wow, yourself. Well, the rednecks I know don't think "redneck" is an insult. I guess if you think it's an insult that's your interpretation. With regards to demographics, country music, and suburban fans: "Market research indicates the average country listener is white, suburban and leans to the right..." -- Time Magazine If you have contrary information, I'd be happy to take a look at it. I think you were implying I might be surprised by the politics of some of my favorite roots country icons... I somehow doubt it. I don't like them because their politics "match" my own complex matrix of political beliefs and positions (I am, after all, a small-government, fiscal-conservative, anti-corruption, anti-war Republican -- an odd duck by most measures). I like them because they make music that moves me in a number of ways. I would be as bothered by, say, Ricky Skaggs being shut out from, say NPR, because of his conservative politics as I am by ClearChannel shutting out the Dixie Chicks. Happily, Ricky Skaggs seems a frequent and welcome guest on some NPR shows. And finally, if you think the stuff that mainstream Nashville artists pump out has much to do with real country music -- all I can say is, wow. _________ PPS... While I agree that -- everything else being equal -- a corporation typically has the right to control what they publish or disseminate -- when they broadcast on the public airwaves they do NOT have the same breadth of rights as a print or net publisher or even a cable-caster. Still, I think it confuses the issues to talk about "free speech" with regard to the Dixie Chicks' rights on this issue. It is however a pertinent term when talking about the broadcaster's (limited) free speech rights. IOW, the broadcaster's own free speech rights (limited as they are by statute and administrative rulings) could be used to argue for greater latitude in exercising their right to play or not play a record. (But it's clearly a complex field.)

I didn't read/hear the referenced "insults" though when I searched just now, here's how the NY Times crit Kelefa Sanneh characterized what may have been the quote: On "60 Minutes" Ms. Maguire told Steve Kroft that their concerts weren't typical country concerts. "When I looked out in the audience, I didn't see rednecks," she said. (Did her lip curl slightly as she pronounced the r-word?) "I saw a more progressive crowd." I was raised to think that "redneck" was not to be taken as a perjorative -- that a man's neck was red because he was working in the hot sun. And I don't think "redneck" should be synonomous with "right wing" -- since I know more than a few self-described rednecks who are ANYTHING but pro-Bush. But, as as a roots country fan, I think it's an absurd fantasy to think the average Nashville pop fan is anywhere close to a redneck, in the classic sense of the word. He/she is often as not suburban, with a "regular" job -- and his country pop music needs are serviced these days by people who wouldn't know an honest day's work if it walked up and kicked them in their silver cocaine straw... And -- one last thing -- about those country roots... The Dixie Chicks could hardly get a tumble with "country radio" fans when they actually sounded country... despite the fact they had killer instrumentals (Martie Seidel won third place honors at the National Fiddle Championships) and strongly roots flavored singing, it wasn't until they switched singers and developed a "smoother" less countrified sound that their sales to "country fans" took off...

I was thinking more principle than practice, here. Obviously, under the last two administrations, the FCC has -- in the eyes of many -- not been fulfilling their congressionally mandated duties with regard to a number of provisions of federal communications law. No, I was addressing the fundamental difference between a commercial publisher -- or cable- or net- caster -- and a commercial entity which has been granted stewardship of a band of the airwaves, which is a limited public resource. While the rationale for extending "decency standards" laws to cable casters may stretch many legal minds to the breaking point, I think most folks can see the rationale for attaching restrictions and provisos to a license to use the public airwaves. But, just so I'm not misunderstood here, I'm not saying that CC did necessarily break any laws or violate rules of their license. I'm only talking about the distinction between broadcasting on the public airwaves and print, cable, or net publishing or media transmission. I don't know if they did violate laws or rules -- but I think it's extremely unlikely that there would be legal consequences from this FCC, even if they did. Particularly given the givens.